[Yavicleus]

Does recycling really make a difference, or is it just "feel good" environmentalism that has no real effect?

[Taskforce_Unity]

If we do not recycle or keep our waste in check then we destroy the environment. Did you know that the mass of plastics in some parts of the ocean are 6 times the amount of plankton present? This is having massive ecosystem effects.

[Madpaddy]

We put a 15c levy on plastic bags in ireland a few years ago. It cut back on plastic bag usage by 99%. Everyone has reusable bags now for groceries or can be seen running to their cars grappling with 6 or 7 items of shopping because they don't want to pay 15c for a bag. It was a brilliant move by the government and God knows they don't have many of them. Most people in Ireland pay €400 for waste disposal. This can be reduced to €100 by recycling cardboard, plastics, glass etc and bringing the non-recyclables to the dump once every 6 weeks or so.

I appreciate that the actual economics of recycling plastic are questionable but cardboard and glass are very easily recyclable. Good topic though.

[Aaron]

Produces more pollution than it prevents.

[Yavicleus]

Produces more pollution than it prevents.

Yeah, I was mostly thinking along the lines of "is recycling a way to reduce energy use". Like, after Peak Oil, I doubt any recycling will be feasible because it will be too expensive to do. But really, I have no clue. I'm just curious what people think about it.

[0mar]

depends on how its done

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

After peak oil we will still have to deal with or ignore what waste we currently have. However, after that we are hoping that there won't be any more waste created by industry so we won't add to the problem.

I believe recycling works. if only because my whole city now composts our yard waste. then they sell it back to gardeners creating a sustainable industry.

They may have to include horse poop in that and use wagons eventually to collect the stuff but its better than what will happen to all the other waste we create and leave at the curb when its too costly to have garbage trucks drive in endless circles picking it all up.

[PhilBiker]

The question is too broad.

From what I've read, recylcing white paper is worse for the environment than making new fresh white paper from trees, and if you manage trees carefully they are sustainable. However, the amount of energy used to recycle aluminum is trivial compared to the amount of enrgey making aluminum from raw boxite. For plastics, recycling is easier than producing also.

[johnmarkos]

The Straight Dope on recycling:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000804.html

Beverage companies should bring back refillable bottles: they probably will as the cost of making new bottles and cans rises with PO. Also, people buy too much junk: another problem solved by oil & gas depletion. I prefer composting, reuse, and reduction of waste to recycling.

[katkinkate]

[B]Reduce[/B] your use of packaging and disposable stuff

[B]Reuse[/B] as much as possible.

Then recycle

The first 2 are more important. Recycling only caught on so well because business could make money out of it.

[smiley]

Yeah, I was mostly thinking along the lines of "is recycling a way to reduce energy use". Like, after Peak Oil, I doubt any recycling will be feasible because it will be too expensive to do. But really, I have no clue. I'm just curious what people think about it.

I can only speak about glass recycling but there it really makes a huge difference. To melt a glass from raw materials requires a lot more energy and higher temperatures than remelting an existing glass. Switching to a feed which partly consists of recycled material can lower your troughput times, and melting temperatures, and thus greatly reduce your energy needs.

For optical glasses recycling is not an option because you can't guarantee quality, but for containerglass it is perfectly suited. There are furnace designs which can handle an intake of 90% recycleglass.
To give you an idea on the amount of energy involved: A typical glass bath is 30 meters long 10 meters wide and 1 meter deep and running at 1600°C. It consumes as much gas and oil as a large town. A typical glass plant has 2 or 3 of these baths in operation 24/7.

Of course when you want to recycle you need to collect and transport the used glass. Moreover you have to clean it from organic debris before you can allow it in the furnace. That is going to consume some energy.

However to make new glass you need to ship quartz sand from the middle east to your furnace so there is no real transport benefit in not-recycling.

[OldSprocket]

Recycyling should be for durable goods that have been thoroughly used and have simply reached the end of their lives. Currently recycling is just a way to waste energy without the guilt.

Since we have disposable everything, it makes sense to try to recycle what we would otherwise discard. But the biggest improvement would be to eliminate disposables.